Bring the Monkey

An amusing spoof with subtle and not-so-subtle humor. The narrator (female) trails after her glamorous and beautiful friend Zarla, who is "a siren not a spectacle" and whose great talent is to listen to people. Zarla decides to get a monkey to make up for not being able to trek to the steppes of Asia or similar places (written in 1933, so the far off places were still REALLY far off and exotic). Then her social life picks up as a result. Interesting observations about people of various classes and races, some of which are not as harsh or reactionary as you might suppose from that